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Sunday, November 26, 2017

A Lexicon for Our Time

Suppose you never
“insulted” Islam or Muslims? Or never gave Muslims the “stink eye” in a
supermarket or the Mall
of America? It wouldn’t matter. Especially if you’re a white infidel. If accused of Islamophobia or being “racist,” how would you reply? Logically, you couldn’t
rebut the accusation. You would be trying to prove a negative.Hark that hoary old chestnut, asked by a
trial lawyer of the defendant, “When did you stop beating your wife?” If it’s a
Muslim defendant, the joke would be lost of him. Islam permits the beating of
wives (and of dishonorable daughters) with a fist or a vehicle or a hammer or a
machete.

I offer here a short
list of my own thoughts on the terms gratuitously employed by the MSM and
political establishment to sugar-coat the depredations of Islam and of the Left.As with Islam, because there is no moderate
Islam, there is just Islam – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey – there is no “alt-Left, or a “moderate Left; there is
just the Left. “There
is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” Or, as
the banner of FrontPage reads, “Inside
every Progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” The Progressive,
writes N. A. Halkides, “believes in precisely two things: his own
magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination,
they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal
dictator.”

Islamophobia: Bare
Naked Islam has I think the best motto in its site banner concerning Islam:
“It’s not Islamophobia if they’re trying to kill you.” Which means that given
the countless news stories about jihadist attacks and the number of people
murdered in the name of Allah, most people, if they retain some sense and a
desire for self-preservation, would naturally develop a phobia or fear of
Islam. In
2016, over 11,000 Islamic terrorist attacks were made.

The war on the West is
not limited to murdering Westerners. Just the other day Salafist “moderate”
Muslims attacked a Sufi mosque in the northern Sinai
killing over 300 worshippers. The Sufis are “heretics” according to
Salafism’s strict and literal interpretation of the Koran, and deserve to die,
as well as all non-Muslims who do not submit. Sufis hate America and the West,
too, so no tears for the victims will be shed on my keyboard. Sufi, Salafist, Wahabbist,
or Shi’ite, if your’re a member of one of those sects, and feel comfortable
swathed, body and soul, in the suffocating “culture” of Islamic traditions and
mores, then you’ve already wasted your life. A terrorist’s AK-47 or bomb won’t
make a difference.

The OIC Flag

The origin of the term
“Islamophobia” dates back as far as 1918 and perhaps earlier. Wikipedia
notes that “One early use cited as the term's first use is by the painter Alphonse
Étienne Dinet and Algerian intellectual Sliman ben Ibrahim in their 1918 biography
of Islam's prophet Muhammad. Writing in French, they used the term islamophobie. Robin Richardson writes that in the English version
of the book the word was not translated as "Islamophobia" but rather
as "feelings inimical to Islam." [Is there a difference?] Feelings
are the only denominator. After Kant, feelings can create reality, or recreate
it from a reality one is not copasetic with.

The term today is used
by the
Left and Islamic spokesmen and organizations (such as CAIR) to denigrate anyone who is
critical of Islam and warns of its creeping and steady advance in Western
civilization.

Racist and Bigot: If accused of
islamophobia or of being “racist,” or a “bigot,” how would you reply?
Logically, you couldn’t rebut the accusation. You would be trying to prove a
negative. The best defense against such an accusation is to not recognize it as
a debatable subject. Short of the accuser owning an X-ray device that could see
into your mind to determine whether or not you were racially prejudiced against
Muslims or blacks or Latinos, he couldn’t prove the truth of his accusation. He
could possibly cite actions or recorded words, as ancillary evidence. But that
is all, in which case the accusation would be moot and pointless. And, racism
or racist speech has no metaphysical properties to inflict physical hurt or
damage on anything or anyone. The written word is also harmless, but has been
accused of being able to “incite” hate and racism in others.

Hate speech: I am
adamantly opposed to the notion of “hate speech.” It has been proven to
be an invitation to censorship, especially by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube, and more or less lets off the hook anyone susceptible to and is
“provoked” to take violent actions “inspired” by it. Wikipedia notes that “Hate speech is speech which attacks a person or
group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic
origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. In
the law of some countries, hate speech is described as speech, gesture or
conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or
prejudicial action against a protected group, or individual on the basis of
their [sic, should be his] membership of the group, or
because it disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individual on the
basis of [sic, should be his] membership of the group. The law
may identify a protected group by certain characteristics. In some countries,
hate speech is not a legal term and in some it is constitutionally protected.”
Particularly, in the U.S. where it is protected by the First Amendment which
does not mention “hate speech.”

The definition of hate
speech varies from country to country, and is often woozy. Key underlying terms
in those definitions are “hurtful,” and “dignity.” Those two latter terms are
connected. If someone’s speech is deemed to be “hurtful,” it means that a
person’s sense of self-worth has been injured. Further, if implies that a
person’s “dignity” or sense of self-worth is so shaky and tenuous (or even
false) that it can psychologically affect the person. In which case, why should
anyone care? As with the accusation of racism, hate speech has no metaphysical
properties that can inflict physical hurt or damage on anything or anyone. Hate
speech, lik Islamophobia, is not some magical body paint that can be projected
on anyone and rob him of his “dignity.”

The OIC “coat of arms”

However, the notion of
hate speech is promulgated with an insidious ulterior motive. As Robert Spencer
notes in his June 2008 article, George
Orwell meets the OIC, “Their
goal is positively Orwellian. Replace ‘Big Brother’ with the
‘Organization of the Islamic Conference’ [now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation] and
you have the world the OIC wants to impose on us all.” Note also that Islam
exempts itself from the charge of having committed “hate speech” against Jews,
Christians, and individuals, and commits it in word or image, or against anyone
who combats Islamic incursions in word or action. The scholarly discourses of Robert Spencer on Islam, or reporting
the news by Pamela Geller of the latest
Islamic depredation, or hanging
a piece of bacon on a mosque door, are far between in terms of “hate
speech,” but they are still deemed “hate speech.” Luckless persons expressing
their contempt for Islam or fear of it will be fined or punished by the state,
by non-Muslim authorities, in Britain
and in Europe.

Hate crime: Again, this
is a notion I am also opposed to. If one commits a violent crime against a
person or group, one should be charged with the physical action or the crime
itself, not for one’s reasons for
committing it. A crime, or initiated force committed against an individual or
group, is a crime, regardless of its motive.

“Safe” place: “Safe” places are areas where men and women congregate –
classrooms, cafeterias, restaurants, open air areas, sidewalks, parks, etc. – but
are roped off by yellow politically correct police tape, prohibiting entry by
anyone with whom one disagrees or whose presence one objects to or fears, and
provides a space where one is “safe” from ideas or persons that may disturb a
peace of mind. To paraphrase an advisory oft said by the police, “Move on, there’s
nothing to see here.” Safely protected individuals live in a mental bubble
world they resent being popped by the needle of reason, and there literally is
“nothing to see there.” A “safe place” for Muslims is a “No-Go”
zone for non-Muslims.

Insult, defame, offend,
denigrate: These terms are meaningless if not accompanied by violence. That is, by
themselves, they cannot harm anyone or anything. Vibrations in the air caused
by an uttered insult have no metaphysical properties. Nor do pictures,
cartoons, or written words.

“Confused” and “Mental
problems”: When European authorities, and more and more the American,
identify a killer as a Muslim, their first explanation of the person’s actions
is that he was “confused’ or has “mental
problems” allegedly stemming from his having escaped from a war-torn Middle
East. “Authorities have ascribed jihad terror to mental illness on numerous
occasions,” said Robert
Spencer, including the Orlando, San Bernardino and Chattanooga attacks in
the United States. Sometimes it sticks, but usually, days, weeks or even months
later, when few people are still paying attention, the police will retract
their earlier statements and admit it was a terrorist attack….What could account for this global
outbreak of mental illness that always manifests itself in similar ways?”
Spencer told WND in an email. “Authorities should start asking themselves why
so many mentally ill people embrace Islamic jihad violence. What are....
European leaders doing about this curious epidemic of mental illness among
Muslims?”

Violent
“extremism”: When Western leaders concede that a jihadist attack
was committed by a Muslim who shouted “Allahu Akbar” while committing it, then
the new mantra is, together with “mental problems,” that the perpetrator took
Islam to “extremes” by resorting to violence.

The “religion of
peace” with swords

There are so many Koranic verses that cannot be misinterpreted, such as: “And
kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have
expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at
al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then
kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. Fight them until there
is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But
if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the
oppressors.” (191-193)

The Koran is replete among its 114 surahs or chapters with incitements to
violence. It is quite easy for an aspiring jihadist to ignore the nerdish “peaceful”
surahs and “go mental.” He’d rather opt for “extreme” role-playing in emulation
of Mohammad in obedience to the wishes of Allah the “most-merciful,” and slice and
dice every infidel in sight, by knife, bomb, or gun, and claim with
his right hand every Jewish, Christian, or atheist woman at hand as a sex slave,
once the males have been decapitated.

The jihdist’s work is never done, not until Islam dominates the world,
and there is “peace,” the peace of a global graveyard.

“According
to Islam, peace is not simply an absence of war.” Come again? Excuse me,
but all we can see is war.

Edward Cline, American Novelist

Edward Cline was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1946. After graduating from high school (in which he learned nothing of value) and a stint in the Air Force, he pursued his ambition to become a novelist. His first detective novel, First Prize, was published in 1988 by Mysterious Press/Warner Books, and his first suspense novel, Whisper the Guns, was published in 1992 by The Atlantean Press. First Prize was republished in 2009 by Perfect Crime. The Sparrowhawk series of novels set in England and Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period has garnered critical acclaim (but not yet from the literary establishment) and universal appreciation from the reading public, including parents, teachers, students, scholars, and adult readers who believe that American history has been abandoned or is misrepresented by a government-dominated educational establishment. He is dedicated to Objectivism, Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason in all matters.